Transcript in English

Question: Hello, your name?
Answer: My name is Gouri Mondal.

Question: How long have you been here?
Answer: I came here around forty years ago. During the 70s, back when I was not married. In ‘71, at the Chanda camp in Maharashtra I got married. From there we went to Dhaka. During the refugee crisis my husband went to Bangladesh again. Those who had arrived after 1970- they were not given any inch of land. They threw us out. They threw us – so we came here, in this country and settled in Mana camp. At Mana camp he made his card. That card could not get us rice – we got some money instead. What could we eat out of that money?

Question: Who was there in your family then?
Answer: My husband, my father-in-law, my mother-in-law and I.

Question: How old were you then?
Answer: at that time, I was around 20-21 years old.

Question: Did you have to do the same job?
Answer: No. My husband did it. When he went there, he got scared by a man. My eldest daughter was three then and I was six months pregnant with my second daughter – and a mad man came when he went to urinate, shook him at the shoulder at night, to which he got extremely scared. Till the day he had strength in his body, he never told anyone about this incident. The time when he became bedridden, only then he narrated that the incident scared him. We took him to the doctor but nothing could cure him. From there he got P.L and was sent back to Mana camp.

Question: What happened after he got scared?
Answer: After that trauma he got affected with T.B.- coughed blood. We did not get a good doctor there, and even after check-ups they could not cure him.

Question: Did he fall sick totally?
Answer: Yes, he did completely fall sick. When he coughed, it used to be blood drenched all around. After he fell sick, he was again sent here.

Question: This was P.L. camp three, right?
Answer: Yes, it was a P.L camp. He could not work and my father-in-law was an old man, was sent here, did not survive even for six months or so. He dies right after. At that time, I had two daughters –one three years old and the other one-year old. The younger one could sit then. I became a widow at 22. Days went by – we got some money from the P.L. Previously, they gave us 22 rupees for three people.

Question: 21 rupees for three people?
Answer: Yes.

Question: Was this given monthly or weekly?
Answer: It was given weekly. And now it is given monthly. Now that we two are there – the younger daughter and I, we get 600 rupees a month.

Question: For two?
Answer: Yes. And we get 30 kilograms of rice too. Earlier, if we fell ill, we did not buy medicines. We used to get money for the medicine bills- they don’t give it anymore. That has stopped.

Question: Have your in-laws died?
Answer: Both have died. Husband too. Two daughters- one got married near the shop by the gate over there.

Question: Have you not asked for rehabilitation? Land and property? Like they gave in Malkangiri, Umarkot?
Answer: No, no.

Question: Did you ask for it?
Answer: Yes, the boys did. They did not give. And my husband is dead and I don’t have a son, I have come with a P.L. They had called us to number one – my younger daughter was unwilling to go. I am old, and there are goons at night in those areas. She won’t go there. She asked to give us a vacant room on this side- she won’t get married. Seeing so many disturbances around, she has decided not to get married.

Earlier she had an ailment. She used to shiver and pass out, which is why she could not attend school after class nine. Now she has aged a little, around 30-35 years, she won’t get married anymore. What else can we do – living here, barely eating, she works at a store and makes six thousand out of which we are surviving. I have got a nerve issue in my neck area, you know my child. I can’t walk well, my head spins, my body shivers. No good government doctor has seen me. There is no facility. How can we manage clothes with 1500 rupees per year for buying clothes? But that is all that they give us. What else can we do? We are barely surviving. I have seen the doctor, but nothing is working out. Now I am having some homoeopathic medicines- they have asked me to have it for six months. The burning sensations have reduced a little. Even at night my body shivers. Oh, what a pain it is! I can’t stand, my head spins. What to eat, what to do? It’s very hard to survive and there is nothing to say. Without a husband, without a son, what to do – it’s all that my daughter earns. And Aruna buys medicines for 1500 rupees per month. Earlier we used to get some money to see the doctor. Now, since Covid has struck, we get nothing. Everything has stopped. What else can I say – there is a lot of pain.

Question: Is the government taking initiatives to provide a house and a shop to your daughter?
Answer: They won’t give us anything. They won’t.

Question: Why?
Answer: There is no son in the house. They won’t give us.

Question: Still such a system?
Answer: Yes. Those who have sons will get it, we will not. Only if we had got another room!

Question: Didn’t they give you another house?
Answer: They won’t give us. Even if they do, it won’t be a good one. It will be half broken.

Question: And they have asked you to leave from here?
Answer: Yes, we will have to evacuate.

Question: When will you have to leave?
Answer: After it is complete. The one whose house will be complete will get a house. And we will be forced out of this house.

Question: They will kick you out of this house? For how long have you been here?
Answer: My younger daughter is aged 35-40 years. We have been here since then.

Question: Now suddenly they’re saying they’ll kick you out of here?
Answer: They will repair the other house, so they have brought us to stay here. They’ve asked us to live here until that house is repaired.

Question: Is that house comparatively better?
Answer: Yes.

Question: And the one in which you were earlier – how is that?
Answer: That is this one just beside here. The one in which the officer babu stayed.

Question: What after it is repaired?
Answer: After repairing it, some other person will be staying there. Yet another will be occupying this one too. And where will I go, only God knows – I don’t know my child.

Question: Where else will they take you?
Answer: Some vacant room at the place behind. Such a poor destiny! What more could a widow at 22 expect from fate? There is no relief, only frustration.

Question: You went to P.L one, is there any chance that you will be taken there?
Answer: They said they will, from the office. My daughter said she won’t go- give me a house here, I will live here. Who will look after us at night if we go there- there are goons. That is why she did not go there.